All posts tagged ‘Moon’

Back in the middle of the turkey-filled, Baileys-fuelled, TV marathon that is the Christmas holidays, BBC2 hosted the UK’s ‘proper telly’ premiere of the award-winning indie sci-fi sleeper hit, Moon. Directed by first-timer (and son of none other than David Bowie) Duncan Jones, it features an amazing performance by Sam Rockwell as the lone worker on a Lunar base, and a wonderfully somber and moody soundtrack by Clint Mansell. To mark the occasion, Jones (who goes by the handle @ManMadeMoon) got as many of the cast and crew together as he could and provided a live tweetalong of the movie using the hashtag #MoonBBC2.

Jones himself was in LA, and had to dig out a Blu-ray of the movie and sync up with the opening credits of the terrestrial broadcast and he encouraged others all around the world to do the same. What followed was 90 minutes of very insightful and interesting commentary on one of my favorite movies of the last decade. As Gavin Rothery (concept artist, VFX supervisor and, bizarrely, stuntman on the film) said, “It will be like watching the film with me and Duncan leaning over your shoulder creepily whispering into your ear.” Continue Reading “Director Duncan Jones’ Source Code Tweetalong” »

I was too young to enjoy watching Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon in 1969, but I did grow up waiting in anticipation for the first Shuttle launch. (I still have my Young/Crippen mission patch!) I sent the NASA PR department about one letter every week in 1980 and 1981, asking for any pictures or brochures they could send me back. Over the course of two years, I had a stack about two feet tall of full-color books, pamphlets, technical documents (for public dissemination), and all kinds of photos and collector cards. My vision was bad, and I was old enough to know that astronaut training was out of the picture, but thoughts of actually working for NASA were always in the back of my mind. Years passed, school ended, job and family arrived, and the next thing I knew the shuttle was being retired. But still, my fascination with NASA continues, and I believe it always will.

A number of years ago, I discovered a sci-fi writer named Jack McDevitt. I could not get enough of his stories and have finally caught up with his entire catalog of short stories and novels. Now, when a new McDevitt novel is announced, it actually goes into my calendar so I can pick it up on New Book Tuesday.

“It’s a double rainbow all the way. Whoa, that’s so intense! Whoa! Man! Wow!” Okay, a mall parking lot isn’t the most inspirational setting, but this was still pretty cool. Photo by Brad Moon.

Double rainbows are so 2010, but I still had to stop and grab a shot of this example which made an appearance here in London, Ontario (Canada), on Saturday night. It was my first personal brush with this phenomenon; not awesome enough to knock me to the ground or trigger a trippy running commentary, mind you, but cool enough to be worth taking a snap. I only had my iPhone with me (the boys and I were on our way to the mall for the annual “running of the shoe stores” event where parents elbow past one another in an attempt to get at the few remaining decent kid’s running shoes in popular sizes, in a post first-week-of-school shopping frenzy), it was pouring rain and we were hiding inside the car before making a break for the mall entrance. Thus the funky, water-on-windshield optics and the ghost of a reflected dashboard instrument cluster in the shot.

First sign of the double rainbow. Photo by Jonathan or Aidan Moon (I was driving, they’re in the back seat, they’re identical twins, they were taking turns, so I don’t know which one took this particular shot).

A few minutes earlier, I gave my iPhone to one of the boys, who took this quick snap through the windshield as we were driving. You can only see a hint of the doubling effect in this shot, but get a pretty good sense of how bright the primary rainbow was (the photo has not been edited).

Today marks the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Forty-three years ago mission commander Neil A. Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr. walked on the moon while command module pilot Michael Collins orbited above. A few days from now, however, will mark the 43rd anniversary of the day people really reacted to what just happened. As with all major events in time, there is always a day of reflection. I’d like to honor that day of reflection with my top 10 thoughts about the Apollo 11 moon landing.

It was a comeback victory in the space race against the Soviets

I’d even say, we made the Soviets look like chumps. We won the space race by putting a man on the moon. Sure, the Soviets were there first, having bounced their Luna 2 spacecraft off the moon 10 years earlier, but we left our footprints there. The Cold War may have lasted another 15 years or so after that, but it gave us the confidence to make movies like Red Dawn. It also showed the world what could be achieved by democracy over communism. From my father, who was in the Navy at the time:

I was at sea when the landing occurred; I didn’t even know about it until we hit our next port of call, which was Barcelona. I can tell you that the Spanish people were very excited about the landing; they mostly thought it was a wonderful occurrence and congratulated us sailors for the event. They also thought we must be very proud to have beaten the Russians to the moon. At the time, Spain was under the control of the fascist dictatorship government of Francisco Franco.

Gave the conspiracy theorists something to talk about for the next century

Even though anyone with a high-powered telescope and laser system (don’t you have one?) can see the reflections off the equipment left on the moon, the conspiracy theorists still think the whole thing was staged, on the basis that we haven’t gone back. If we should have faked anything in the late ’60s, it should have been Vietnam. GeekDad has more on debunking the conspiracy theories.

It felt great to be an American

The ’60s were a tumultuous time in American history. Civil rights, Vietnam, Kennedy and the Cold War — all made for a stressful time and American values were put to the test. But when we landed on the moon, everyone in America put all that aside, if only for a couple days. As stated by my cousin KV:

I was at a Little League party, watching the moon landing after our last game of the season. There was a 7-Eleven across the street, so the mom got all of us Coke slurpees, which had just been invented recently. I sat there watching Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon while I took a taste of my first Coke slurpee. I remember thinking how great it is to be American.

Made Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin legends in their own time

That’s hard to achieve these day, with nothing happening as spectacular as walking on the moon. When you think space you think of Armstrong and Aldrin. When you look up at the moon you think about those images, no matter how old or young you are. Those images of them walking on the moon are an iconic piece of American history that every child will remember until the day when we’re all enslaved in the Matrix.

Proved that the moon was not made of cheese

There were a lot of excited scientists when we landed on the moon — they knew that it would lead to research projects and glorious spoonfuls of moon rocks. Since then, experiments in space and on objects from space — especially moon items, have been at the forefront of our exploration. After beating the Soviets (since that was the driving force for going there in the first place) the science has taken over and a lot has been discovered about our moon, science that is still relevant today.<

Kennedy was right

He was shot and killed while in office, and there is no greater legacy attributed to John F. Kennedy than his promise to put a man on the moon. Less than six years after his death, we did just that. And we brought them back safely, just like Kennedy promised.

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

It turned science fiction into reality

For years, many great science fiction novels and the pages of Analog magazine theorized about what it was like on the moon. Adventures took place there, colonies were built and the moon was a place of fantasy. Not anymore. The day after we landed on the moon, science fiction writers around the globe not only celebrated the fact, but started looking for more far-fetched places for alien detective stories — like Mars. If we hadn’t landed on the moon, Total Recall may have never been as cool as it was.

Gave our kids something to aspire to

The Cold War was a bummer. The kids growing up in the 1960s were tired of hiding under their desks for nuclear bomb drills and were feeling depressed by society. Being told they could grow up to be president didn’t sound that great anymore after Kennedy’s assassination. Growing up to be Mickey Mantle was the next best option, but that only brought thoughts of liver damage. Then we set foot on the moon, and now you could grow up to be an astronaut. How fantastic is that? Can you imagine the wonder on a child’s face sitting in front of the television as Armstrong bounded along the moon’s surface?

It validated NASA’s existence

NASA was under a lot of pressure from the government and from the American public to do something spectacular. When Kennedy promised a moon landing, the scrutiny was even harsher. NASA had no choice but to land us on the moon as quickly as possible. When it did, it achieved at least 40 years of grants and funding; only now is it coming under scrutiny again.

We actually sent a spacecraft to the moon and landed on it

The Apollo 11 mission astronauts trained hard for countless hours for this mission. NASA spent millions of dollars on building a spacecraft with the specifications needed to land on the moon. They didn’t have a moon to test it on first — this was the test. Sure, they could simulate the landing, but nothing is better than the real thing. The science, the engineering, the planning and training that went into this project was the first of its kind. We landed men on the moon. Think of how amazing that actually is and the hundreds of people it took to do it. Just under 43 years ago, every single one of those people watched the moon landing again on the evening news and reflected on the part that they played in putting a man on the moon. This is a virtual toast to every single one of them. Let’s not have it be another 43 years before we are back there, building a mini-mall.

A version of this article was published on GeekDad in July of 2009, for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.

I was strolling through the mall parking lot a few days ago and happened across this alternative to the usual minivan. I took a closer look — it’s not every day you see a hearse that’s apparently being used for family transportation — and yeah, there’s a booster seat in the back.

No sliding doors, but plenty of room for strollers, bikes, and what have you. Photo by Brad Moon.

If you like the zombie take on the family auto decals (a nice touch, I must say), you can pick up a set on Amazon. For a hearse, I’m thinking eBay or Craigslist are your best bets.

All that's missing is an eyeball impaled on the antenna. Photo by Brad Moon.

This morning, NASA launched the GRAIL mission to the Moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a Delta II rocket, the GRAIL mission is going to map the gravitational field of the Moon in unprecedented detail and provide new insight into the Moon’s internal structure.

Based on the very successful GRACE mission, GRAIL stands for the Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory. The mission actually consists of two spacecraft that were launched together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B. The two spacecraft will fly in a near circular polar orbit of the Moon approximately 200 km apart. By continually taking very precise measurements of the distance between the two spacecraft, the mission can measure changes in the gravitational field of the Moon as the twin spacecraft pass over the surface. The is accomplished through the use of precision radio distance ranging between the two spacecraft. It will take the two spacecraft about three and a half months to reach Lunar orbit due to the low-energy transfer orbit being implemented that dramatically reduces the amount of fuel needed to get to the Moon.

In addition to this primary science mission, there are a secondary set of cameras with the specific mission goal of engaging students in science and engineering. Led by Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, the cameras are part of the Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, or MoonKAM:

GRAIL MoonKAM will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. Tens of thousands of fifth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center (MOC). Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the GRAIL satellites and made available in the Images section of this Web site. Students will use the images to study lunar features such as craters, highlands, and maria while also learning about future landing sites.

The MoonKAM project website features a great set of resources for educators and the registration form for educators to be able to participate in the MoonKAM program. Registered educators can work with their students and put in requests for images from the Moon. MoonKAM is similar to the EarthKAM project that has cameras aboard the ISS in Earth orbit. You can follow the MoonKAM project at @GRAIL_MoonKAM.

Congratulations to the GRAIL and MoonKAM team on a successful launch! We are all looking forward to the scientific discoveries!

A portion of the Apollo 17 landing site from new LRO images. (Image: NASA/ASU)

The Apollo missions to the Moon. Few things stand out in modern human history that are as momentous. Now, thanks to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO for short, we have new views of three of the Apollo landing sites in unprecedented detail.

The LRO mission has been producing incredible data. We have reported on the images of the Apollo landing sites taken previously and the stunning image of Tycho Crater. We have also talked about LRO’s sister mission, LCROSS, that impacted the Moon and led to a discovery of ice on the lunar south pole. We have come to expect a great deal from LRO imagery. The new images that were released on Tuesday continue to astound.

The images show the Apollo 12, 14, and 17 landing sites in amazing detail. The LRO team was able to capture these images without changing the average altitude of the LRO orbit. They simply made LRO’s orbit slightly more elliptical and moved the orbit’s low point, called the periapsis, to around 21 km and to occur when LRO was on the bright side of the Moon. If you want to understand what this means from the perspective of Orbital Mechanics, you can start digging in at Wikipedia’s article on Elliptic Orbits or, if you really want to geek-out and math and physics don’t scare you, check out Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Bate, Mueller, and White.

Today’s image APOD image from the Tycho Crater is an image taken as an oblique view, where the image is captured from a position other than straight overhead and was taken on June 10th, less than a month ago. The mountains are actually in the center of the Tycho Crater. If you take a look at the overhead image on Google Moon of the crater you can clearly see these mountains in the context of the crater. You can also switch the view to elevation and look at the detailed topographical data.

This image is simply majestic and is now my desktop wallpaper. Be sure to check back in to APOD daily for many more stunning images and look through the extensive archive going back to the mid-90s.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of NASA. The articles I write for GeekDad are independent of my day-job and I am not officially representing NASA in this capacity.

So who exactly owns the moon? It is a question that has vexed me for years. In light of the upcoming shuttle launch I found myself straying back to it more and more often. As a historian I have a pretty set definition of how a nation or country colonizes. Historically, the Finders-Keepers rule applies: get there first and it is all yours. In the history of space exploration a total of twelve men (yes, just men) have stepped foot on the moon and they have all been American. An American flag is planted on the surface of the moon. And everyone knows that once that flag is planted, ownership is claimed. At least that’s how it works in WOW. So that must mean that the United State of America owns the moon, right?

A Nevada man, Dennis Hope, seems to believe this as well. Under the assumption that the US laid claim to lunar real estate, he petitioned the UN to be allowed to create a government on the moon. Of course it would be run in absentia. When the UN didn’t respond, he assumed he had every right to the moon and its land. He formed a company and began selling deeds to lunar property for less than $30 USD per acre. The US owned the moon, he had the rights to administer its government. And with that much land, every self-respecting government would, of course, begin selling it off. Now to come up with a solid system of taxation…

[To read the rest of Jenn Tylbon’s post about lunar real estate, and other posts in our series counting down to this week’s final shuttle launch, visit GeekMom!]

Last week, I posted about a family trip to Ottawa, the capital of Canada. There was a bit too much to fit into a single post (it’s not that big of a city, but packs a lot for families with young kids to do), so this is part two of our visit to Ottawa.

The Canadian Museum of Nature. Photo by Brad Moon

I love natural history museums and so do my kids. Animal exhibits, dinosaurs, hands on activities, it’s all good. Ottawa’s Canadian Museum of Nature may not be quite the size of others we’ve visited (like New York City‘s American Museum of Natural History, for example), but it’s well worth a visit and easily kept our trio occupied for the better part of a day. The museum is housed in a stately old stone building, referred to as “the castle” that’s recently been renovated to include a large, glass atrium; stone carvings of animals and stained glass are everywhere. I don’t know what it’s like on weekends, but we found that with a weekday visit, crowds were not an issue at all, giving everyone plenty of time to enjoy the exhibits. I highly recommend the weekday visit, by the way —no crowds (just some class groups), lots of parking, no wait for elevators and lots of room in the cafeteria. The admission fee for a family is a reasonable $25, although we bought a multi-museum pass that included admission to this site. While the sheer quantity of exhibits might be underwhelming compared to AMNH, the quality is certainly on par with what we’ve come to expect at better museums.

First stop, the dinosaur exhibit. Photo by Brad Moon.

We closed out our final day with a visit to yet another museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Once again, admission was part of our multi-museum pass, but rates for a family are $18. This was one of my favorite places to visit. Besides the feeling of being surrounded by so much equipment and technology, the museum is a sprawling affair with expansive walking areas that defy over-crowding. There is so much room in here that the biggest issue is keeping track of everyone. The aircraft collection is very impressive, covering everything from the early days of flights, through to space travel. War planes are well represented and cover World War I through current models, with offerings from many national armed forces besides Canada, including the US, Britain, Germany and Russia). Commercial planes and even search and rescue aircraft are represented as well. Displays include aircraft that are suspended from the ceiling, versions with cutaways to show mechanical details and interiors and plenty of interactive stations. Museum staff offer activities for kids (the boys spent an hour tearing through the building trying to spot emblems to check them off a list) and the gift shop is one of the more interesting I’ve been in; so long as you’re interesting in aviation, that is.

Inside the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Photo by Brad Moon

If you have the opportunity, Ottawa is well worth a visit. It’s a great city for kids, with a huge number of museums, shopping areas and points of interest packed within a very small area. In fact, other than the Aviation and Space Museum (which we stopped at on the drive home) and a tour on an amphibious bus, we walked to all of our destinations and left the truck in the hotel parking lot. We plan on returning, maybe in the winter next time, when the Rideau Canal is frozen, becoming the world’s largest skating rink.